Niki Nicholas Nkuna

Good And Bad Old Days - Poem by Niki Nicholas Nkuna

The good and bad old daysAll trouble and dance everywhereThe authority steering the boiling porridge to quell the stinging spatteringFire underneath conflagratingTroops grew in numbers like raindropsFlooding the vast country like the black cloud blanketOnly to be thwarted at the point of strength by the black unrelenting vortexThe veil has thus lost the grip lifting to the skies to reconnoitre the mountainsSplattering of ‘Amandla, ’ sporadic on the mountain tops and valleysA horrific sight indeed!

The good and bad old days, All trouble and dance everywhere! Like a vast dam bursting at the seamsFarmers had no choice but to bolt for coverScant hope, like a maimed octopusSkimping haplessly with no tentacles to block the loss of breath

The good and bad old days, All trouble and dance everywhere! Like equally competing teamsWarriors victims and heroes the sameLaugh and cry the sameRun and hide the sameBluff and sure the sameHope and fear the sameDeath and survive the sameFight went on, hope for freedom and despair in hot raceOutstripping each other now and then like racing carsWinter and summer deepening, raising hope and despairSometimes long and short, bleak and bling with no winner in sight

The good and bad old days, All trouble and dance everywhere! Like disgusting cockroaches mushrooming everywhereThe predator so sure about the war aheadSheaf in hand but ignorant of the land mine behind the bootSooner the war had to be restarted again in close shaveThe gargantuan wheel ever turning, grinding victim and hero the sameWith scant brawn the victim counting the heroes’ desperate attemptsVictim and hero submerged in blood floodRed faced, plugged each other’s strengthStaggered to the peace table to sign the pledge For the grindstone to grind the air not human bodies anymore!